


like kerosene on a flame of doubt (i just couldn't make it right)

by thefigureinthecorner



Category: The Bright Sessions (Podcast)
Genre: AU: Joan gets put in tier 5, AU: Nobody gets therapy, Atypical Joan, Escaping the AM, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Kidnapping, Mark was never in a coma, Owen is helpful, Pyrokinetic Joan, Sam also ends up in tier 5, it's mostly hurt though
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-16
Updated: 2019-07-16
Packaged: 2020-06-29 09:13:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,676
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19827046
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thefigureinthecorner/pseuds/thefigureinthecorner
Summary: She keeps pushing at the guards trying to drag her away from Mark, from her brother, he’s her little brother, she needs to get to him, and she’s screaming and they’re screaming back at her and telling her that she’s going to have to come with them, and she’s going to have to be locked away until they decide what to do with her.The pressure explodes.It feels like all Joan does is blink, and when she opens her eyes, she’s surrounded by flame.Or: What happened when I took a few lines from Vanessa's bonus episode and ran with them.Title is from Anger by Sleeping At Last.





	like kerosene on a flame of doubt (i just couldn't make it right)

**Author's Note:**

> I Wrote Atypical Joan Once And Now I Can't Stop-- an autobiography
> 
> I have ideas as to where the rest of the characters end up in this AU which means there might be more to come, so just. stick around I guess

The moment Joan sees Mark, it feels like something in her chest has boiled over into her bloodstream. She tries to open the door, only for the alarm to sound; she doesn’t have the clearance to even be in this hall, much less unlock any of the cells.  _ Of _ course _ an alarm would sound, good going, Joan. A+ for being so stupid about finding your brother that you let yourself get caught. _

Mark looks up the moment the red lights begin flashing and the ear-splitting buzz of the alarm starts blaring. He meets her eyes, and he looks… shocked. Afraid. Afraid of her, or for her, she can’t tell. He’s pale, and  _ that’s _ not just from the shock; she’d be willing to bet he hasn’t been outside in years. His eyes have these dark circles on him and he looks like he hasn’t eaten or slept properly in god knows how long.

And then there are security officers at her shoulders, trying to pull her away from the door, blocking her view of him. She can barely see him stand up and start yelling for her— she can’t hear the words through the door, not underneath the alarm. She begins trying to fight back, to run for him, to—

—the boiling grows stronger. It’s an intense heat, a pressure running deep in her veins, coursing through her system. She keeps pushing at the guards trying to drag her away from Mark, from her brother, he’s her little brother, she needs to get to him, and she’s screaming and they’re screaming back at her and telling her that she’s going to have to come with them, and she’s going to have to be locked away until they decide what to do with her.

The pressure explodes.

It feels like all Joan does is blink, and when she opens her eyes, she’s surrounded by flame. The entire hallway is blazing and the smoke is thick, curling around her and choking her eyes and lungs. The heat, too, makes it hard to breathe, like trying to suck down molasses through a straw. The security alarm is compounded by the fire alarm; she’s surrounded by heat and sound and it’s suffocating. She can hear people banging on the cell doors all down the hall, smell the singed flesh of the guards around her, and she wants to be sick. Her stomach churns, her eyes water, her lungs burn.

The sprinklers go off. The seconds they take to activate feel like an eternity, but they douse the flames and leave behind smoldering walls and ashy air. The alarms die down. Joan is left coughing on the ashy air, breathing heavily and staring at the carnage and trying to process what the hell just happened. What the hell she just  _ did. _

She burned the whole hall out. The walls are black, the paint melted and peeling off, the metal of the cell doors partially warped and misshapen. The insides are, mercifully, fine. Mark is staring out at her, trying to speak to her, but the words are muffled and the intercom into the room isn’t going to be operational again anytime soon.

There are more footsteps behind her, and before she can turn around to see who it is, there’s a prick in her neck and the world spins around her before fading out.

——

She wakes up chained to a hospital bed.

She doesn’t open her eyes immediately. She can hear a heart monitor, and feel that there’s an oxygen mask over her face. It’s doubt related to the smoke inhalation, however little she may have actually inhaled. Somehow, miraculously, she left without a single burn, at least none that hurt enough for her to notice immediately. She can tell she’s in her normal clothes still and she can smell the soot on them even through the sterile air in the mask.

“Come on, Joan, your heart rate spiked. I know you’re awake. Don’t be stubborn, now.”

Wadsworth is there next to her when she finally cracks open her eyes. She has this look in her eyes that Joan can’t quite place. Contempt, maybe. Disdain? It isn’t good, whatever it is. 

Wadsworth reaches over and removes Joan’s oxygen mask. “You won’t be needing this, the doctors said it would be fine to remove it once you were awake. I want to talk.”

Joan takes in a shuddering breath. The soot smell is worse with the mask off. “What about? There’s a lot.”

“Oh, I know, believe me. Let’s start with what you were doing in Tier 5. Getting a glimpse of your future living conditions, maybe? Oh, don’t think I don’t know that wasn’t you who burned down half the floor, I know everything,” Wadsworth says when Joan opens her mouth to protest. Joan’s mouth clicks shut. “You’re an atypical now, and your ability injured seven guards and caused permanent disfigurements on three, not to mention the smoke inhalation we’ve had to treat people for. We can’t just let that go, Joan.”

The image of Mark’s sunken, tired face rises up in her mind. That’s going to be her, she realizes. This isn’t a situation she can get out of. But she’ll be damned if she doesn’t try.

“I won’t try to deny that it was me, but Ellie, I don’t even know how to make that happen again. For all we know, it was a one time situation. It was an  _ accident _ .”

“An accident which injured several people, Joan. Do keep up. The fact that you did it unwittingly only makes your case weaker. You  _ unwittingly _ gave seven people third degree burns and now they’re in critical condition. We still don’t know if some of them will  _ survive _ . So no, you don’t get to leave here just because ‘it was an accident.’”

She picks up a needle off the cart next to her and pricks Joan’s arm with it.

“You’re dangerous, Joan. You’re gonna be here for a long, long time.”

The world goes black again.

——

She wakes up a second time, still in bed but not strapped down this time. The room she’s in is bare, save for a small, simple metal table with no drawers bolted to the floor next to her bed, a single shelf on the wall across the room, also bolted securely in place, and a small grey clock with a white face. The bed is bolted down too, she notices upon looking at the legs. Other than that, there’s nothing furnishing the space. The walls are a pale, sickly turquoise and the tiles are a mottled off-white.

Joan is wearing the patient-assigned tan scrubs now. Someone must have changed her out of her work clothes while she was unconscious, and she can’t help but feel a bit creeped out by that. Her wrists each have a metal cuff attached, and she recognizes them as a device for suppressing pyrokinetic abilities.

She stands up slowly, not sure how steady she’ll be after being sedated for some indefinite amount of time. It’s 7pm, but that doesn’t tell her anything about the day. They could have been keeping her under for weeks, for all she knows. But when she stands, her legs feel mostly solid underneath her, so she suspects it hasn’t been that long.

Despite the cuffs, she tries to tap into that energy she felt earlier to create a flame. But there’s nothing there now, nothing that she can feel, at least. The boiling pit in her chest has died down entirely.

For now, anyway. She has no doubt that the AM will try to force it out of her if she can’t bring it back soon.

——

Her guess was correct.

She jolts awake from an unrestful sleep when the door opens the next morning— the clock says nearly 8am— and an agent she barely recognizes walks in, a security officer trailing behind her.

“Come on, get up. You’re set to be in an observation room in about five minutes.” The agent gestures toward the door with her head, and Joan tries to blink the bleariness out of her eyes, grabbing her glasses off the bedside table. She almost wants not to comply with them, but she hasn’t felt out what they’re willing to do to her yet, and she doesn’t want to make the first day any worse than it has to be.

So she follows them out. The agent grabs one of her arms and the security officer grabs the other, and they lead her down a few hallways into a second windowless room with a couple of chairs and an observation room across from her behind several layers of heavy glass. She’s forced down into a chair, electrodes placed on her temples, and the cuffs around her wrists are replaced with restraints. As the agent and officer leave, she immediately tries to tap into her ability again now that the cuffs are off, but once again has no luck with it. Her chest just feels cold and empty.

Wadsworth walks into the sectioned-off observation room. She smiles at Joan through the glass, an unsettling smile that looks completely genuine save for the fact that it doesn’t quite reach her eyes, and taps the microphone a few times to check it before she speaks.

“Good morning, Joan. I trust you slept well?”

Joan only sneers at her in response.

“Well then, if you’re going to be that way, I guess we’ll skip the pleasantries. Now, since your ability is only manifesting under stress right now, we’re going to have to bring it out of you. You need to figure out where it comes from if you’re going to harness it, after all.” Wadsworth flicks a switch on the panel in front of her and a low buzz starts in Joan’s muscles. She flinches at the feeling; it isn’t painful, not yet, but it’s deeply uncomfortable.

Nothing happens.

Wadsworth sighs. “Joan, I don’t want to have to do this to you, but if you’re not going to cooperate, I’m going to have to resort to more extreme measures, and I know you don’t want that.”

She turns a knob and the real pain begins.

\----

When Joan is returned to her cell, she’s shaking and crying and no closer to figuring out how the hell to create the flames on command. Pain, apparently, was not enough to trigger her newfound pyrokinesis.

\----

After a week goes by with no progress, the scientists switch to a different tactic.

“If you don’t use your ability, we have ways of making you,” Wadsworth says as a greeting one morning. “I’m sure Agent Green would be willing to help with that. I know you two are close.”

Her tone gives away the implications behind the words. Joan doesn’t believe a second of it.

“You wouldn’t hurt him. He’s too much of an asset to you and you know it. He’s a high-ranking agent; good agents are hard to come by.”

“Oh, is that so? And what about Mark, hm?”

_ That  _ makes Joan’s blood run cold. Owen, Owen was important. But Mark… Mark was just a subject to Wadsworth. A pawn. Wadsworth could and would do whatever she wanted with him.

“You  _ wouldn’t _ ,” she tries anyway.

“I dare say I would. He’s just down the hall, it would be easy enough to bring him here. Actually, why don’t we? If nothing else maybe he’ll have an easier time using your ability than you do. It’s not often we get to work with siblings together, after all.” She walks away, heels clicking on the tile.

Something inside of Joan sparks at that. It’s not like the boiling feeling from before, sudden and controlling and all-consuming. It’s not something she thinks she can even harness. But the flame under the pot has been lit and she knows now that it’s only a matter of time. And, if Mark is in the room with her and the eventual outburst is anything like it was last time, then she could end up hurting him, burning him, she could--

She tries to shove that train of thought away.

Wadsworth returns with Mark, and he ends up strapped to the chair right across from her, the same electrodes from yesterday attached to him now. He looks like a scared kid, like he used to when they’d stay up too late watching horror movies.

“Joanie, what’s going on, why are you here?”

“I don’t--”

She’s cut off when Mark screams.

She sees red. The pot begins to boil.

“Stop it.” She glares at Wadsworth through the glass. “ _ Stop it. _ ”

Wadsworth matches her glare. “Use your ability, and I will.”

The heat is coursing through her veins again, same as last time. But--

“I can’t. I can’t, it’ll hurt Mark, I can’t do that to him--”

“Then control it. Let the flames out but don’t hurt him.”

Mark keeps screaming.

Joan explodes.

The flames hit the walls, same as last time, though they’re made of some type of stone in this room and are, therefore, not nearly as flammable. They spread across the floor and lick up the sides like waves against a rock and leave blackened scorch marks in their wake, but they arc around Mark and leave him untouched.

The screaming stops, leaving Mark on the verge of hyperventilating, staring at her in utter terror and trying to push himself back away from her in his chair.

Joan’s panicking almost as much as Mark at the thought of what could have happened. At the thought of what  _ did  _ happen. The need to protect Mark was stronger than her lack of control; that, or Mark took her ability for a second to push the flames away. She wasn’t sure which it was and she was afraid to repeat the incident to find out. She didn’t want to repeat the incident in a way that would allow her to find out.

Wadsworth looks pleased.

“See? That wasn’t so bad, now was it?”

\----

It’s after a month of training and experiments and rigorous exercises, trying to push her ability to work and harness it, that a new patient arrives in Tier 5.

Joan doesn’t learn about her right away, but she gathers bits and pieces over time from passing employee conversations and the few times she’s allowed to speak with the new patient. Her name is Sam. She’s a time traveler, like Camille, but she’s one of the first the AM has seen who disappears entirely when she goes on a trip. She was discovered when she disappeared in the middle of the grocery store; mending the collateral of  _ that _ had been a tough one. She’s a “very valuable asset” to the AM’s research.

She killed her parents.

_ That _ , Joan thinks when she overhears it,  _ is probably a major oversimplification.  _ Sam, like Joan, is all of five feet tall and doesn’t have a muscle to speak of. She doesn’t look like she’s left her house for any reason other than necessity in years, and she jumps every time someone comes near her. Her ability isn’t destructive; all she does is leave and come back. She can’t make her way through two words without stuttering. Joan doesn’t think she’d be capable of hurting a fly.

She’s paired off with Mark a lot on experiments. Sometimes Joan will be added into the mix; they want to see if Mark can create flames in the past. All they have is word of mouth from Mark and Sam to go off of, but from what the two of them have said, it hasn’t worked. Joan suspects they haven’t tried. There’s a feeling to Mark’s ability, a pull, and she hasn’t felt it once in all these experiments and trials.

But from the way Sam and Mark start to look at each other, she begins to suspect they’re becoming closer.

\----

Owen finds her.

She can tell, from the look on his face, that he had no idea where she’d been, that he hadn’t known the name of the person whose cell he was about to open. That he’d been  _ worried _ about her, or-- mourning her? He looks like he’s seen a ghost-- he’s pale and shaking and looks vaguely like he might be sick. Evidently, there's been an oversight, or some strategic meddling, or maybe he’s just been assigned here because the AM is cruel. In the year she’s been held at the AM, Joan hasn’t seen him even once, and as Owen begins stammering she understands why.

“I-- I thought-- they told me you  _ died  _ in that fire, Joan, what happened? Why-- how are you here?” His knees look about ready to give out as he stumbles over to where she’s stood up in shock next to her bed.

Despite all her better judgement, she runs to him and hugs him as tightly as she can. She knows that he lied to her for years about Mark, that she should resent him, that she should  _ hate _ him, she should never want to see him again in her life, and yet--

\--and yet, it’s been months since she’s had any source of physical comfort, and she’s going to take every little bit she can get right now.

He clutches back at her and holds on like a drowning man clinging to a life preserver. He leans down, buries his face in her hair and just keeps on babbling at her, voice broken, “I thought you were dead, I thought you were dead, oh my god you’re alive, I’m so glad you’re  _ alive. _ ” She can feel the tears falling on the top of her head and she’s sure she’s leaving a giant tear stain on his shoulder herself.

He pulls out of the hug eventually, but keeps his hands on her shoulders, looking her in the eye. “What  _ happened? _ ”

She begins relaying the story to him, what she did, what the AM has done, to her and to Mark and to everyone. As she continues, the look of determination on his face grows in intensity.

“What are you thinking right now?” she asks when she’s done, after a momentary pause, reaching up to brush the tears off of his face with her thumb. When he speaks, it’s with a conviction she’s never heard in his voice before now.

“I’m thinking I’m going to get you out of here.”

\----

Owen is forced to take her to the trial. It’s his job, and if he loses it, he has no chance of getting her or Mark or anybody out. So, he complies. He escorts her through the building to one of the observation rooms.

It’s one of their sibling trials again today. Mark is there, but so is Terrence, another Tier 5 pyrokinetic who was there for reasons Joan had never been able to gather. He has almost-perfect control of his ability, though, so Joan can’t imagine it’s for risk of accidental exposure.

The test is to see how well Mark can use each of their abilities; whether his control is stronger with Joan’s pyrokinesis or with Terrence’s. The science is laughable, and Joan thinks it’s less for the purpose of pursuing actual knowledge and more for the purpose of harming the three of them. Joan’s certainly gained control of her ability in that she can stop and start fires at will and her accidental ones have been reduced to minor sparking, but Terrence is on a completely different level. He can do tricks. He shows off. He’s almost certainly a five on the AM’s rating scale.

They still don’t know if Mark’s control has anything to do with the control of those he’s taking the ability from. There’s only two pyrokinetics to choose from in Tier 5. The fact that they’re _only_ testing pyrokinesis and Mark’s mimicry is also suspect. The sample size is far too small to get any conclusive evidence of genetic connections in terms of atypical ability strength. These trials are pointless.

No, Joan is certain that the reason for this isn’t to learn. It’s to hurt.

\----

Owen gets assigned to oversee her trials more often after that day. Now that the secret is out that she’s alive, Joan suspects that Owen’s being assigned to her to rub salt in the wound, to force him to feel responsible for the pain she’s in. She wouldn’t put it past Wadsworth, and when she relays this concern to Owen, he agrees with her speculations. But there is one singular upside, in that it gives them a chance to talk the escape plan through.

And god, it takes a lot of planning. Joan tries not to let herself get too impatient, but it’s not just Joan, it’s Mark too, and he needs to be able to sneak them both out without raising any alarms. It’s a big ask, for a facility like this. Maps and timetables and observation become their best friends; predicting patrol paths and shifts so they can sneak around security and get the hell out of dodge. And, frankly, Joan is thankful that he’s willing to try to help them at all. He’s sacrificing his job for this; he’s potentially sacrificing his whole life for a life on the run from the AM.

He’s certainly conflicted about it; he does love his job and he believes there is good work to be done at the AM. He’s afraid that he’s one of the only people there who thinks that way; that if he leaves, things can only get worse. But he loves Joan more, and 

Mark asks that they bring Sam, too. That Sam isn’t dangerous, that what happened with her parents was an accident, that it had happened nearly a decade ago now and she regrets it every second of her life. Sam is a good person, he says. She doesn’t deserve any part of what has happened to her.

Owen agrees. It’ll be more difficult, but hurting Mark would hurt Joan, and he’s had enough of hurting people.

\----

Weeks pass. Weeks turn into months. Owen hates that it’s taking this long, knows that with every passing day it seems more and more like he’s only given them false hope, but he has to get every little detail right. He needs time to save money for the trip, withdraw cash without raising any alarms about how much he’s taking out at once, get himself a fake identity. He needs to know exactly where every guard is at every second of the night starting precisely at midnight. He needs to know that Wadsworth won’t be keeping late hours that night. He needs to know that the night guard who mans the surveillance cameras is the one who’s remarkably incompetent that night. He needs to make sure he has enough time to communicate the fine details to everyone involved.

He’s trying. He’s trying to move as quickly as possible. He forgoes sleep for planning. Paranoia becomes his best friend; he’s constantly looking over his shoulder, leaving his phone and anything else that the AM could have bugged far away from him as he works. He cannot, absolutely  _ cannot _ , allow anyone to find out what’s happening and jeopardize their escape. Three months, two weeks, and four days later, everything is laid out. It’s not as exact as Owen would like it to be, but it’s as exact as it’s going to get.

“We leave in a week,” he leans in to whisper to Joan on their way to, officially, one of her final trials. She nearly weeps with joy.

She shouldn’t be getting her hopes up yet, but it’s 

\----

The night of the breakout comes.

The halls are dark, and while Owen has to talk his way into the building by explaining that he’s forgotten some files he needs to look through for tomorrow morning or some other excuse, he won’t raise any alarms by unlocking their cells; he has the necessary clearance to do so. It won’t be a break-in, not like when Joan snuck past security to find out what was happening in the basement; he’s fully within his right to open those doors.

The cameras are easy enough to avoid. The AM is dark, and Owen’s seen their camera quality; they haven’t been updated in a long time and as long as the four of them act at least somewhat casual, they’ll just look like a normal group on the footage unless someone inspects it closely enough to notice the scrubs. If they get out of here successfully, then nobody will care to look at the footage until the next morning when they’re long gone.

That, and this night guard is absolutely  _ notorious _ for falling asleep on the job. The cameras are the least of their worries.

No, it’s getting past security that’s the hard part. The addition of Sam to their group means there’s four of them to conceal, but it also means four sets of eyes to keep watch. The difficult part is controlling Sam’s ability. She always, always returns to the present in the same place she left. If she travels accidentally during the escape, there won’t be any chance to wait for her. Her control has improved immensely during her time at the AM, but it’s still the biggest variable in their plan.

Even running into a guard wouldn’t screw them over as much as Sam disappearing potentially could. Owen has rank in this building; he’s a terrible liar, but if he manages to convince the guards that he’s taking them to a trial, something about sleep and their abilities, they could still get away. It’s something they’ve discussed. But they’ll have to keep moving no matter what and if Sam travels then she’s going to be left behind.

They get lucky. Sam makes it through and although there are a couple of scares where a flashlight beam gets just a little too close and she flickers a bit, she thankfully doesn’t ever disappear entirely.

They escape through a back exit which leads to one of the employee parking lots. It’s one that isn’t lit very well and it’s where Owen dropped off the escape van he intends on using; it’s a secondhand car that isn’t registered to him. He won’t be found by license plate tracking, at any rate. Sam, Mark, and Joan all duck down under the line of sight of any surveillance cameras that might be outside.

It’s only when they’re safely out of the gates that any of them dare to make any sound.

“Holy shit,” Sam says, pulling herself up into the backseat.

“Holy  _ shit,”  _ Mark echoes.

“I  _ cannot _ believe that worked.” Joan.

In the driver’s seat, Owen looks grim, gripping the steering wheel with white knuckles.

“It worked. And now… now we run.”

\----

They drive for nearly a full day straight and finally stop at a motel in the middle of nowhere, hours away from any major cities. The four of them must be a sorry sight, three of them in hospital scrubs not at all suited for the winter, and only one with any possessions to his name, a large duffel bag of necessities he’d thrown together the night before. They all have bags under their eyes. The receptionist barely glances at them as she takes down the information and hands them a small envelope with their keys. One room, two beds, paid for in cash by Owen; he can’t risk leaving a data trail.

The moment they’re safely inside the motel room, Joan turns to Mark and pulls him in for a hug, clinging to him the way she’s wanted to for years. She hadn’t had the chance to just  _ hold _ him, not until now; it hadn’t been safe, they hadn’t had time, the AM wouldn’t let them. And now, well. They’re not safe, not by a longshot, but they’re out of the woods for now. He holds on just as tightly, face buried in her shoulder.

“I missed you.” The weight of the past day finally sinks down on Joan and her voice is choked with tears.

“I missed you too.”

When they break the hug, they see that Owen and Sam have both already collapsed on each of the beds and fallen asleep. Sam’s been straining to remain in the present for the past day and Owen drove for the last leg of the trip, so it makes sense. Owen hasn’t even changed clothes; he looks like he barely took the time to remove his tie and belt before passing out.

Mark stares at Owen for a while with an unreadable expression. “Y’know, I still don’t trust him as far as I can throw him. I mean, I appreciate what he’s done, and he’s kind of a twig so I guess the distance I can throw him might be further than I thought, but…”

Joan huffs out a small laugh. “That  _ is  _ understandable. I’m not sure I trust him entirely either, not anymore, but… he  _ did _ get us out.”

“Yeah, but I don’t think he would have on his own. It’s… well, I think it’s just because he loves you, Joanie. He would’ve been glad to watch  _ me _ rot. Sam too.”

Joan feels the flames thrum deep below the surface in time with her heartbeat.

\----

They head out again in the morning and rest again at night. It’s a cycle; drive, sleep, repeat.

It’s the third day of driving that they stop at some highway-side strip mall’s thrift store to pick up some clothes. They’ve figured out pretty quickly that nobody in remote areas thinks to ask questions; the type of people who stop at a thrift store in Nowheresville, Iowa on the side of I-35 are probably just as strange and unusual of a group as they are.

Rest doesn’t exactly come easy. The beds aren’t exactly comfortable and Sam, Joan, and Mark have their fair share of nightmares between the three of them. Exhausted as he is, though, Owen talks them down when he needs to; Joan helps whenever it’s not her. Sam, as sweet a person as she is, is too anxious herself to be all that reassuring, and between the three of them Mark’s the one with the most nightmares so he’s definitely not much help in the calming department. Thus, the onus falls on Owen and Joan most nights.

Mark and Sam won’t share what they dream about. Joan dreams of fire.

Sometimes she dreams of the day this started. She dreams of charred, unconscious bodies, of Mark’s terrified face. Of Wadsworth’s smug, smug face. Of needles and blank rooms. Other days, it’s her more unfounded fears-- that she’ll burn Mark, or maybe Sam or Owen. That she’ll kill someone for real this time, or expose her ability to the public and create a mass panic. It’s unlikely, she knows; she can control it now, well enough at least to not create accidental flames every time she’s scared or angry.

Most of the time.

She wakes up next to Owen every time and he calms her down. After all their history, Joan wouldn’t say Owen is her first choice of bed partner, but Sam and Mark don’t quite trust Owen enough to sleep by him, so they always share one of the beds and Joan takes the space next to Owen.

She’ll wake up, sometimes sparking away, but Owen will risk the minor burns to hold her close to him and tell her she’ll be alright. He does the same for all of them, at this point. It’s a routine. They fall apart and he helps put them back together as best he can with the pieces he has left.

He isn’t exactly the shining example of mental health at this point either. The rest are all far worse off, he knows, but the constant vigilance is taking a toll on his mind.

And they all have things they miss.

Sam misses her cat. She’s brought him up a couple of times. Darwin, named after the actual Charles Darwin who she’s apparently seen in person. She can only hope he was found in her apartment after she went missing and adopted by a nice new family who will take care of him, and not… well, not put down or left in the apartment to starve because nobody’s there to feed him. Her face falls every time she talks about him.

Owen misses his family deeply. He’d always been one to call his parents every week, but the chances that the AM would be monitoring their calls to see if he’s still in contact with them are far too high. They’d probably trace the call to his location and that could only end badly. So, he doesn’t. He hates to do that to them, hates the fact that his parents are probably worried sick about him, hates that in their old age anything could happen to them and there’s no way for him to know anymore. He tries to find family in his new ragtag group but it’s not the same.

Mark misses having friends.  _ Normal _ friends, that he met for normal reasons. Joan’s his sister, he met Sam under some of the most fucked-up circumstances ever, and Owen is… well, he’s something. He still falls too far under the fucked-up-circumstances umbrella to really be much of a friend, and Mark still doesn’t quite trust him enough to use that word for him anyway. He’s been kind, but he’s not a friend. So he’s just… something.

And Joan knows she’s never going to see the notebook she and Mark shared as kids ever again. She’d had it in her apartment to flip through from time to time, but it has notes in it that clearly reference atypicals. The AM probably confiscated it if they were the ones to clear out her apartment when she was taken a year and a half ago; if not them, then her parents have it, and she’s never going to be able to speak to them again.

None of them are okay. They’re all just trying to make peace with that.


End file.
